Winter Commencement honors more than
1,000

Nearly
1,100 students graduated from Marshall University on Sunday, Dec. 5, when the
university celebrated its 2010 Winter Commencement at Cam Henderson Center.

Among the 1,069 students receiving degrees were 650 undergraduates, 414 with
graduate degrees and five from the School of Medicine. The Winter Commencement
honored graduates from July and August 2010, and tentative December 2010
graduates.

Plymale receives award from
National Trails Association

The National Trails Association has
awarded its 2010 Trails Public Service Awards to Rahall Transportation Institute
Director and CEO Robert H. Plymale for his demonstration of significant and
consistent support of trail planning, design, or implementation through strong
leadership and legislative efforts.

Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said, “I want to thank Bob Plymale and the Rahall
Transportation Institute for their diligent work to make West Virginia’s trail
system one of the finest in the country. As an avid and fellow trail enthusiast,
I know how important it is to continue to expand our trail system and keep this
segment of our tourism industry strong. I am proud of Bob’s recognition and look
forward to many more years of success from him and RTI.”

Myke Watts named Employee of the
Month

Myke Watts, assistant director, Enterprise
Applications, Information Technology, has been
named the October 2010 Employee of the Month,
according to Michelle Brown Douglas, chairwoman
of the Employee of the Month Committee.

Employed since April 1999, he was nominated by
Brent Maynard in Information Technology.

Honor society installs Marshall
chapter

Marshall University’s chapter of The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi,
which was approved by the organization’s board of directors last spring,
was formally installed last month, according to Dr. Mary Todd, dean of
the Honors College.

Founded in 1897 at the University of Maine, Phi Kappa Phi is the
nation’s oldest, largest and most selective all-discipline honor society.

Tickets available for "Video Games
Live" Feb. 3

"Video
Games Live" will arrive at the Keith-Albee Performing Arts Center in Huntington
at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 3. Turn off the X-Box, shut down the Wii and walk
away from the PS3; it’s time for everything you ever knew, heard, saw and
remember about video games to come to life right before your eyes.

In anticipation of the show, radio station WKEE will broadcast live from 12 noon
to 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 12, at Cabell Huntington Hospital’s Healthy Kids
Playground at the Huntington Mall. Those who stop by can have the chance to win
family 4-packs of tickets to the show. In addition, $1 raffle tickets can be
purchased for the Grand Prize package containing a red anniversary Wii, Guitar
Hero, a family four pack of tickets to the show and other prizes valued at more
than $500. Proceeds from the raffle benefit the Children’s Hospital at Cabell
Huntington Hospital.

Women of Color Nominations Under
Way

Faculty in Marshall’s Natural Resources and Recreation
Management Program recently have had articles accepted in scholarly journals.
Dr. Min-Kook Kim’s article titled “Detecting vegetation cover change on the
summit of Cadillac Mountain using multi-temporal remote sensing datasets: 1979,
2011, and 2007” is accepted and will be published in Environmental Monitoring
and Assessment.

Dr. James Farmer has two articles forthcoming, “Motivations
for using conservation easements as a land protection mechanism: a mixed methods
analysis,” to be published in the Natural Areas Journal, and a second
titled “Land trusts and tourism entities: A sustainable approach to natural
resource preservation?” to be published in the Journal of Sustainable
Tourism.

Profile: Bizunesh Wubie
-
a series on interesting Marshall University people

The shy
young girl stood on the school playground, a wishful visitor to a world she
could not enter. She could only watch from the outside as classes were conducted
inside for the lucky few, mostly boys. Regretfully on that day, Bizunesh Wubie
was not among those few.

In the
1950s and 1960s, as in decades past, though the government of Emperor
Haileselassie of Ethiopia was trying to expand education both for boys and
girls, many families, particularly, in rural areas where an early marriage for a
daughter was a badge of honor, were adamant or unwilling to send their daughters
to schools.